


The Holly Bears a Prickle

by azriona



Series: Advent Calendar Drabbles 2014 [25]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Music, Gen, Parenthood, Pre-Series, Unilock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 11:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2849792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azriona/pseuds/azriona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Christmas morning brings all sorts of joy.  Family isn’t always one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Holly Bears a Prickle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowturquoise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowturquoise/gifts), [tiltedsyllogism](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiltedsyllogism/gifts).



> he last of the Advent Calendar Drabbles. Today’s fic is a bit of a treat: the final three prompts all shoved together, because they actually worked really well with each other. The prompts were The Holly and the Ivy (which I’ve quoted for the title), Christmas musings through the eyes of Daddy Holmes on living with three geniuses, and an unfortunate cheese platter. They were left (in order) by cousin_sue, shadowturquise, and tiltedsyllogism. 
> 
> I listened to about half a dozen versions of The Holly and the Ivy, all sung by boys choirs, before I landed on this version [sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir which I rather like](http://youtu.be/y3JJJi5SCUE). If you want something really fun, try [the Torero Band Tijuana Christmas version, you won’t regret it](http://youtu.be/dSBZeDaOvP4).
> 
> Merry Christmas!

The cheese platter had been crafted with care.  Not the platter itself, of course – though Treowman Holmes suspected whoever had constructed it had done so with infinite precision and artistry.  No, it was the selection of cheeses that struck him with how much thought had gone into preparing the platter that had, in the end, remained untouched.

 

It was, of course, quite simple.  A crumbly bleu cheese, so smooth and satisfying that it melted on the tongue.  A soft and aromatic Brie, studded with truffles and so ripe that it was nearly liquid on the plate.  A cranberry crusted goat cheese, no doubt from artisanal goats living in some remote mountain region where there was no running water and they were allowed to do whatever popped into their goaty heads. 

 

And then, the only cheese that had been touched: a solid, dependable Welsh cheddar, only half of which remained.

 

“I hope you took your pill,” said Mavis caustically, looking over his shoulder. 

 

He had – that morning, immediately after pouring in the splash of milk he allowed himself for his tea.  It was clockwork, the same as how his glasses slipped down the back of the sofa cushions, the same as Mavis asking what he’d like to watch on the telly in the evenings, the same as Mycroft and Sherlock bickering over… well, anything, really.

 

A semester at Cambridge had not tempered Sherlock’s temper one bit.  Treow rather thought it was worse, really.

 

“What on _earth_ are you listening to, Treow?”

 

“The Holly and the Ivy.”

 

“My goodness, whoever is playing it made it sound like a dirge.”

 

“Yes, but it’s a classic Christmas dirge, and therefore I am listening to it,” said Treow patiently.

 

“The boys are smoking again,” said Mavis, and she perched on the sofa next to him: a bird in flight, he thought, ready to take off at the slightest moment.

 

“Before dinner?  They’re getting rather brave.  Do you want me to catch them at it?”

 

“Oh, let them think they’re clever,” said Mavis, and reached for a cracker – her eyes no doubt on the Brie – when there was a shrill whistle from the kitchen.  “Oh, bother,” she sighed, and off she went, her long scarf fluttering behind her.

 

Treow smiled, almost pitying the abandoned Brie, and reached for another bite of cheddar.

 

The front door opened as he crunched down on the cracker, and he heard the boys enter in the foyer: bickering, of course.  One set went upstairs: the other set came into the room, and after a moment, Mycroft appeared, looking cool and immaculate as always, except for the flush to his cheeks.  He walked past Treow, leaving behind a definitive trail of some musky cologne that did an excellent job of covering the scent of cigarette smoke.  Treow felt rather grubby, sprawled lazily across the sofa, and he watched, amused, as Mycroft expertly banked before turning back to his father. 

 

“Sherlock is _impossible_ ,” said Mycroft, and there it was, that note of impatience and incredulous disbelief that always came into play when Mycroft spoke of Sherlock.  Treow knew Mycroft’s secret, of course – it was hardly a secret, no matter how desperately Mycroft tried to hide how much he loved his little brother – but to listen to Mycroft, it was as though Sherlock was a trial specifically meant to drive Mycroft mad.  Even when Sherlock was a baby, Mycroft could never quite understand Sherlock’s motives.

 

(“But _why_ is he crying?” small Mycroft had demanded, when colicky Sherlock screamed for hours every night. 

 

“He wants to be held close and walked,” Treow had explained patiently, as he wore a path into the rugs.  “He is tired and this is comforting to him.”

 

Mycroft had sighed heavily.  “Why doesn’t he just go to _sleep_?”)

 

Treow reached for another cracker, and another slice of the cheddar.  “What did Sherlock do to be impossible today?”

 

“I think he intends to set fire to the chemistry labs at uni,” said Mycroft.  “I hope you took your pill.”

 

“A terrible thing if I did not,” agreed Treow.  “If he hasn’t set fire to the labs by now, I doubt he will before he graduates.  They’d hardly let him back, otherwise.”

 

Mycroft sat in the wingchair, and somehow made it look a bit like a throne.  He didn’t perch, but neither did he slouch.  Nor did he make a move toward the bleu cheese, though Treow caught him eyeing it thoughtfully.  “You’re wearing the Christmas tie again.”

 

“I always wear my Christmas tie,” said Treow loyally, slightly more conscious of the bright red bow tie at his throat now that Mycroft had brought it up.

 

“We’re hardly children any longer, you needn’t wear it for our benefit.”

 

“I never did,” said Treow, but smiled a bit to himself.

 

“I need to return to London tonight.”

 

Treow frowned.  “It’s Christmas.”

 

“And tomorrow is Boxing Day, and I will have spent most of Christmas Eve and all of Christmas Day with you.  There is very important work I have left in London, and it cannot wait.”  Mycroft’s tone brokered no argument: at least, it was clear that he expected Treow to simply agree, if a bit sorrowfully, and let him go without further complaint.

 

“Have you told your mother?”

 

Mycroft hesitated.  “There are a great number of people depending on it, I can’t just _ignore_ my work in lieu of my own personal preferences.”

 

“Of course not,” said Treow.  “And I’m sure Mummy will understand.  When you tell her.”

 

Mycroft winced.  Treow supposed he was terrible to think of that as a triumph, but he reached for another slice of cheese in celebration anyway.

 

He was pleased to see Mycroft do the same – the bleu, of course – but the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs made Mycroft go stiff, and then he was up like a shot, the bleu abandoned.

 

“No time like the present,” he said, and was gone, as cleanly and effortlessly as he’d come in.

 

Treow watched him go, shook his head and after eyeing the bleu for a moment, took another slice of cheddar.

 

“Pedestrian,” said Sherlock from the doorway, and the bite of cheddar on Treow’s tongue was mild enough that it blended well with the scents Sherlock brought with him:  an acrid mix of cigarette smoke, chilled winter air, and lavender Yardley’s soap, used in an attempt to obliterate the first.  It hadn’t worked; Treow could smell Sherlock before he came into view.

 

And then he did: tall and lanky, scowling nearly as heavily as his thick combat boots had sounded on the floor.  His jeans were ripped in what were surely exact patterns and his triple-layered shirts were all dingy grey tones of green and purple.  A leather coat studded with chains which would have completed the outfit was no doubt hanging in the foyer next to Mycroft’s dark Italian wool overcoat. 

 

But it was Sherlock’s hair that horrified his mother and amused Treow the most: his long curls, cut short and gelled to the extreme, sticking every which way across his head.  Mavis had wondered every morning how long it took Sherlock to arrange them; Treow had stood outside the loo with a stopwatch.

 

(Twelve minutes, fifteen seconds, by his reckoning, though of course Sherlock could have been doing other things as well.)

 

“I happen to like my cheddar, ta,” said Treow after he swallowed it down.  The smoke was rather pleasant, with the cheddar, he thought, and patted the cushions next to him, in hopes that Sherlock would lend some more of it.

 

Instead, Sherlock went to stab at the fire.  “Of course you do.  No one actively _dislikes_ cheddar.  There’s nothing _objectionable_ about cheddar.  One always has a preference to which cheddar they prefer, of course, but if the only cheese in the world was _cheddar_ , only the French would complain.”

 

“You’re welcome to have a slice.”

 

“And deny you another bite?  Hardly.”

 

“There’s also goat cheese,” said Treow kindly, and then gaped at Sherlock for a moment when the boy turned away from the fire.  “Goodness.”

 

Sherlock smirked, almost triumphantly.

 

“Is that a _nose ring_?”

 

“Yes,” said Sherlock, quite pleased with himself. 

 

Treow liked to think he was the quiet, placid one of the family.  The little gold hoop on Sherlock’s nostril, however, seemed to have thrown him for a… well, a _loop_.  “Have you been wearing that all _week_?”

 

Sherlock crossed the room and sat down next to Treow.  “It’s as though none of you bother to even _look_ at me,” he complained, nothing if not triumphant, and put his feet up on the table.

 

“Shoes,” said Treow, automatically, and looked hard at the little piercing.  The area around the hoop didn’t look particularly red, as it might have had Sherlock only had the piercing in the previous week or so – but then, the area around the hoop was slightly indented.

 

 

“I see you clearly enough,” said Treow, the initial shock now sliding into quiet amusement.  He wondered what, exactly, Mycroft had said to goad Sherlock into putting on the fake piercing upstairs.  It was really only a question of who would see it first, and when – Mavis, or Mycroft, surely over dinner, though Treow wouldn’t have been surprised if they made it all to way to dessert before one of them did.  Treow wondered, idly, if Sherlock would be willing to make a bet about it.

 

( _Terrible_ father, really.  He ought to warn Mavis, if he could manage it, though she’d never keep the secret, and he very much wanted to see Mycroft’s reaction.  The three seconds it would take for Mycroft to realize the piercing was fake would be priceless.)

 

Sherlock swung his feet off the table, and over the armrest instead, where they dangled over the side.  Treow let it go; at least the horrible shoes weren’t actually _on_ the furniture.  Sherlock fell back on the sofa, his head not so far from Treow’s leg, and he fiddled with his fingers for a few minutes, trying to determine a comfortable place to place them.   He patted rhythmically on his chest; drummed his fingers together over his stomach, beat his fists lightly together, and finally began flexing his fingers in complex patterns that Treow thought might have been chords for his violin.  They might have even matched the music that still played in the background; Treow didn’t know, but would not have been surprised.

 

The lounge fell quiet as the song came to an end; there was a brief pause, and then it began again.

 

Sherlock frowned at the ceiling, and then jutted his chin upward to look at his father at an upside-down angle.  “That’s the _same song_.”

 

“Indeed it is,” agreed Treow.

 

Sherlock stared at him, his eyes narrowed.  “Why are you listening to the same song twice?”

 

“Fifth time, to be exact.  It’s the entire tape.”

 

Sherlock blinked rapidly.  “You made an entire cassette tape containing nothing but the Holly and the Ivy on repeat?”

 

“Eight-track,” Treow corrected him.  “When you were two.  It only took sixteen years for someone to notice.”

 

“Buggering fuck, Dad, _why_?”

 

“Language,” said Treow mildly, and leaned forward to take another slice of the cheddar.  “I like the song.”

 

“It’s a terrible song.  It sounds like a dirge.”

 

“Perhaps that’s why I like it.”

 

Sherlock snorted derisively, and went back to his fingering.  Treow chewed his cheese and waited.

 

“The violin case,” Sherlock said finally.  “Thank you.”

 

“I notice you didn’t bring your violin home.”

 

Sherlock paused.  “There was no safe way of transporting it.”

 

Treow wanted to ask, but knew better.  “Best leave it at school, then.  You can use the case to carry back your pants.”

 

Sherlock snorted.  “Or rocks.  Heavy ones.”

 

And there it was.  Treow’s heart sank a bit, thinking of the beating the case must have taken when it was destroyed.  At least it was the case, and not the violin – or the violin’s owner. 

 

Sherlock’s fingering was growing steadily more rapid.  Treow couldn’t tell the notes, but he knew enough to realize that Sherlock wasn’t following the music any longer.  The same song sped up, or something of Sherlock’s own composition – who knew?  Sherlock’s eyes were losing focus as he fell into the rhythm; Treow could almost hear him humming so far below his breath that it was really only a vibration on the cushions.

 

Idly, almost without thinking about it, Treow lowered his hand to his son’s hair, and ran his fingers through the stiff, product-laden spikes.  Just as he had when Sherlock was small, and curled up on the sofa near him before bed.  He’d loved the sensation, had squirmed in Treow’s lap, aching for more.

 

Now, Sherlock went stiff, and his fingers came to a quick halt.  Treow understood, or thought he did, and pulled his hand away.

 

Instead, he reached for more cheese.

 

“It’s just so… _ordinary_ ,” blurted out Sherlock, watching him.

 

“Cheddar?  Or the Holly and the Ivy?”

 

“Yes.  No.  All of it,” said Sherlock, the vexation rising in his voice with each word.  “Cheddar on a cheese tray and boy choirs singing carols and holly up on the mantel, and tedious jokes in the crackers while we all look as though paper crowns are the height of Christmas fashion.  You’d find the same in every single household in Britain today.  As though we’re all playing some ridiculous farce where we pretend to be happy families.”

 

Treow raised an eyebrow.  “Is that what we’re doing?”

 

“No one can possibly be happy listening to an entire 8-track recording of the Holly and the Ivy.”

 

“Ah,” said Treow.  “But I’m the only one who listens to the entire recording, or even realizes that’s all the recording is.  Well, except for you, now.  And I listen to it every year.  What do you make of that?”

 

Sherlock stared up at the ceiling.  Treow finished his cheese.  He could hear Mavis and Mycroft in the kitchen, their voices back and forth in between the sounds of plates being laid out, the scrapes of spoons on the cookware.  There wasn’t much longer before Mavis would call them in to dinner, and Mycroft would undoubtedly go back to London shortly after, and Sherlock would sulk and squirm and hide himself away for hours on end.  There was only an hour or two of being a family left.

 

Treow wondered how many more times he’d have this, all his geniuses under one roof, again in his lifetime.  Surely at least once, before his wake – and he wouldn’t even be able to enjoy _that_ party.

 

“It would break Mum’s heart,” said Sherlock to the ceiling.  “If I stayed at school and Mycroft stayed in London and you played anything else on the stereo.”

 

Treow couldn’t see just then; the entire room went blurry and his heart pounded in his throat.  He reached into his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief and wiped at his eyes.  Sherlock stayed completely still on the sofa next to him, looking up at the ceiling, his fingers slowly moving through silent chords.

 

On a whim, he reached forward, and slathered a thin biscuit with the goat cheese, and then set it down on Sherlock’s chest. 

 

“Boys,” called Mavis from the kitchen, “stop filling up on cheese, it’s time for dinner.” 

 

Sherlock’s lids were lowered; more than likely, he was staring at the cheese-topped biscuit, though Treow couldn’t be certain from the angle. 

 

“Pedestrian,” he said finally, though if he meant Mavis’s admonition, or the cheese, Treow didn’t know.

 

“Perhaps,” he said casually.  “But _pedestrian_ is quite comforting, on occasion.”

 

His bones were stiff when he stood up; it felt as though his muscles were in a permanent seated position, as he tried to convince them to let him stand upright.  He leaned over, and picked up the cheese tray – only the smallest end of the cheddar left, certainly not enough to keep; Mavis would surely throw it away.  He popped it into his mouth, chewed contentedly, and swallowed, before turning to Sherlock, thinking he’d take the goat cheese biscuit as well.

 

Sherlock was still flat on his back.  But the goat cheese biscuit was gone.

 

Treow’s mouth quirked, just a bit.  It didn’t matter what the future held; he had his geniuses together, now, and even if he wasn’t half as clever as any of them, he knew them well enough to love them more for it.

 

“Up you go, then,” he said cheerfully, “when your mum’s been cooking all day.  Mustn’t keep her waiting, she’ll take it out on me in the bedroom later.”

 

“Oh, _Christ_ , Dad,” complained Sherlock with a groan, and swung his feet to the floor.  “I’m going to sleep in the back garden tonight.”

 

“Ah, we’re never that loud, are we?”

 

Treow heard Mavis’s voice clear and annoyed through the door.  “Oh, Mycroft, _do_ hurry them along, won’t you?  The potatoes will be cold.”

 

“I see,” said Treow.  “I’ll just help you erect the tent after dinner, will that do?”

 

“Only if you erect it in the next county,” said Sherlock, and they went in to dinner together.

 

 


End file.
